Blog

Email Marketing Do’s and Dont’s

Email marketing campaigns are highly effective for customer acquisition and retention. They provide direct, personal messages to consumers – with measurable results. When it comes to email marketing, the ultimate goal is to attract interest and responses. Too often, creative aesthetics are thrown in for visual appeal, but they don’t necessarily work to improve the email message itself. Here are some Email Creative Do’s and Don’ts from the September 2010 MultiChannel Merchant.

Do consider email as a unique medium. What works for print and web won’t necessarily work for email. HTML codes and eye-tracking patterns are different for email than for websites and print catalogs.

Don’t design your email as one big image or rely on background images. As many as half of email recipients don’t have images enabled when they first open their email. That’s why delivering HTML text alongside images with alt text is highly recommended.

Do use alt tags with all images. And go beyond just labeling the image – talk about why your audience would find what’s pictured useful.

Do put the most important element of your message in the upper left-hand corner. That’s where people look first in an email.

Do create a plain text version of your email – always!

Don’t forget about the landing page. You may have a perfectly executed email message that’s visually appealing, but don’t forget about what recipients will see when they click on the email. The landing page is also a part of the user experience.

Don’t assume. Always test, test and test some more before sending your email blast out live!